It’s amazing the random thoughts that pop into your head as you prepare to type one of these pieces. Take now, where I have just watched Godard’s pop culture film as my third film of the day. The first two were by Bergman – All These Women and The Hour of the Wolf. One might see no immediate connection, but then one recalls that Masculin Feminin was shot in Sweden; Sandrews and Svenskfilmindustri co-financed it. With that, the similarities end, for Bergman and Godard could not have been more diametrically opposed in their outlook on the cinema. Bergman’s biggest preoccupation was with the human condition, its loves, its hates, its fears, its joys, sanity and otherwise, religion and atheism. Godard was an anti-humanist, for whom individuals were no more important than Subutteo figures, weighed down not as if in a bowl of cement ready to be thrown into the waters of the deep by some mobster, but by the weight of political and social discourse, and of being part of the youthful Coca Cola generation of the mid-sixties.

This was a crucial film for Godard, for it marked the start of his rejection of conventional cinematic narrative. Give or take the odd startling work, it was also the beginning of where I as film buff part the ways from him. There’s a basic plot about a young man, Paul, just out of national service, attracted to Madeleine, a would-be singer. There are others, friends, boys and girls, but that’s basically it. And within minutes we’re detached from reality by the shooting of her child’s father by an aggrieved young woman. Later a thug stabs himself with his own knife. Only in a Godard movie, but then again, the notion of “is this a movie” is a coin to be flipped. If a film has no connection to reality and makes a point of saying so, then why should anything said in it be taken seriously, as one surely needs the terra firma of reality for serious discourse to take place? In its way then it’s as perfect a representation, like the contemporary The Chelsea Girls and I am Curious… of this era of “James Bond and Vietnam.” Dialogue designed to be hip and relevant and intellectual comes off as trite, and yet it now seems prophetic of a society, and what Godard would call a working class, so obsessed with the vacuum of television soap operas and talent shows. And with sex, of course, so that as two girls leave Paul, another comes up to him and offers to let him take pictures in a phone booth. “It’s 15,000FF to see my breasts…I only have 10,000…okay, but no touching.”

So we have Masculin Feminin, the cinematic representation of a modern art which can call Tracey Emin’s unmade bed art. Look at what it says about society; the slippers, ashtrays, used Kleenex (real masturbation art), and the back-flipping toy dog. They themselves may not be in Godard’s film, but the soul of the piece is here in spades, an embracing of the void, exemplified in Paul’s opening speech when he says “even relative freedom is difficult to achieve in the face of established authority when he’s had the wrong education.” It’s a film I should and often do loathe, but one is hypnotised as one might be by seeing a murder take place in the middle of a crowded street, or a couple making out against a wall without a care in the world to passers by. We should walk out, but we can’t, we’re hooked, for this is cinema as sounding board, as soap box, as brainstorm, as agent provocateur to both challenge convention and the audience. We may not like it, indeed it’s very hard to like, but just you dare ignore it, if only because intellectuals will shoot you down as a cinematic peasant. Bergman wouldn’t bow down, though, and said about Godard; “Godard is a fucking bore. He’s made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin féminin, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring.” Judge for yourself.

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6 Responses

Along with La Chinoise and Band of Outsiders (and probably others too) I see the film as Godard making claim to the frenetic but ill-informed nature of youth. There’s probably a lot of truth in the link you made between the characters and their pop-culture influence. It’s really cynical but I see something in that idea. It’s a pretty indulgent film I suppose but I like to think the ‘trite’ dialogue was designed to sound brash and reflect the strong desire of the characters to latch onto something without a sense of true understanding about why.

I wrote that in a frenzied manner during a break at work earlier today. I want to take the time to praise your whole Godardathon. I know Godard-discussion isn’t exactly difficult to find but this series has come with a keen eye for detail and much thoughtful writing.

Well I can’t disagree with your first paragraph more, Godard was every bit as concerned with the depths of human beings as Bergman—or any filmmaker for that matter—was. What’s different is how they process these depths, or the ills with which bring about these depths. Being weighed down in social politics and linguistic discourse doesn’t change this one iota, especially since Godard presents so much of this as why humans and their interactions have evolved as they have.

When I made my top 100 list a few years ago, this was #1. It’s not there all the time (this is favorites here – not locked-in-stone greatest but what appeals to me most on THIS moment’s reflection) but it’s always near the top and ready to swim back up and claim its spot back. Why? Because in many ways it, to me, epitomizes the promise, the possibilities, and also the disappointments, of cinema. There’s so much I could say, but I’ll quote what I wrote in my capsule at the time:

‘I just respond to the style here above all else – it’s so restrained yet burning with intense energy. The movie is also a great example of the raw reality of documentary infiltrating a fictional story. And Jean-Pierre Leaud’s internal monologue in the cinema is one of my favorite movie speeches ever.’

And just add that the more I see the film the more it seems to offer. Most people see it as an essay more than a story, but its also a poem as much about the kinetic energy and flow of the material as anything else. Yet despite evidencing what you call Godard’s “anti-humanist” streak, there are deeply human moments as well, like when Madeleine and Paul nervously cuddle in bed.

I love this film because it contains EVERYTHING, it is not big-budget nor high-concept and yet it seems to be a microcosm of the seventh art. It’s also the film that made me first fall in love with Godard.

Really enjoyed this mini-series (esp entries, like this one, coming from a very different perspective than my own, helping me see the work in a new light). Sorry to hear it’s already over – I would have loved to read pieces on Hail Mary and King Lear in particular (though I know you don’t like the latter, thought you might be a fan of the former). Though you are not necessarily a big booster of Jean-Luc, you obviously respect his boldness and are curious about his appeal; and that makes for engaging reading.

“Marilyn Monroe has aged terribly. It made us sad. It wasn’t the film we had dreamed of, the total film we carried within ourselves, that film we wanted to make or, more secretly no doubt, that I’ll we wanted to live.”

It never is, but the beauty is in the dream – and the daring to make that dream some sort of reality.

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Wonders in the Dark is a blog dedicated to the arts, especially film, theatre and music. An open forum is highly encouraged, as the site proctors are usually ready and able to engage with ongoing conversation.